My Plan My New Plan
a) make my part-time job my full time job thereby earning money whilst...
b) looking for new (less soul-destroying) part-time job, applying for work experience, volunteer stuff and internships.
c) make contacts through aforementioned work experience, volunteer stuff and internships and get permanent job.
d) quit previous soul-sucking full-time job with some sort of clever/self-aggrandising outburst at manager. (hair-flip non-essential)
e) become astonishingly successful and rich.
Managed to find new (less-soul destroying) part-time job! Which, I have realised, makes part d) of My Plan redundant! Though I do enjoy a good hair-flip.
Temp jobs are funny though, because your constantly on edge wondering if you'll get a permanent job out of it.
I was offered a promotion with my old job too which would have been a route that I would seriously have considered had I not spent over £9000 on university fees and zero effort looking for jobs.
Hopefully something will happen, if not I can always go back to that promotion.
Rule 5: Back-up's are always a good idea.
Most people lack common courtesy. At least this is the opinion I have formed whilst working in my current job. Retail. It is also one of the variety of reasons why I want to leave this job NOW. When various customers bring you to tears twice in one day, I think that should be the point in which you say I've had enough.
Now I could come up with a whole host of reasons why the job I am currently doing is intolerable. But that's just boring and self-pitying. The point that I was trying to get at was that along the way your Plan can get changed due to Blips.
If we refer back to My Plan in part a) we can see that initially I was going to change my part-time job, which I took on to fund my way through Uni, into a full-time job. I did this successfully. However, the location change, in terms of ghetto-ness levels, proved to be quite significant towards my enjoyment of said job.
A graph to show the levels of 'ghetto-ness' in the stores I worked in.
Red- Uni store
Blue- The current store
Through this very sophisticated looking graph I am attempting to show you a Blip that I came across whilst putting my plan into action. The Blip being the realisation that I couldn't stand working in retail anymore.*
So My Plan gets changed:
My Plan My New Plan
a) make my part-time job my full time job thereby earning money whilst...
b) looking for new (less soul-destroying) part-time job, applying for work experience, volunteer stuff and internships.
c) make contacts through aforementioned work experience, volunteer stuff and internships and get permanent job.
d) quit previous soul-sucking full-time job with some sort of clever/self-aggrandising outburst at manager. (hair-flip non-essential)
e) become astonishingly successful and rich.
Though not in my original Plan I felt that looking for a new part-time job was an important change to make in order to prevent a downward spiral into crazy-town (situated next to lazy-town).
It's always important to remember that if you are in situations like this they aren't or don't have to be permanent.
Life is always going to come up with unexpected surprises both good; like a free ice-cream sundae on a hot day, and bad; like a rude customer who continues to shout at you because the stupid top she wants isn't in stock even though you have politely told her where she can find a similar one and informed her about the delivery that the store gets regularly!
...I digress.
Most likely you will come across Blips that will change your Plan, like I have. The way to deal with them is Head On. Yes, it's been a shock to the system but friends have helped as has the inner-belief that you must have in yourself.
You can do it! You really can!
*having worked in Retail for approximately 3 years I can safely say that I entirely respect what they do and applaud anyone that chooses it as a career choice. It's extremely interesting and more than just standing at a cash desk.
As I write this post some 18-19 year-olds sleep soundly in their beds (as that is what the youth of today do) dreaming of the prospect of going to University. An educational mecca where they can fill their braniums with a whole host of knowledge which, in theory, should prepare them for the "Wider Working World".
In. Theory.
Employment statistics regarding graduates tend to be quite surprising; showing that most students after graduating are able to get jobs (80-90%) whatever University they went to or whatever degree they studied. However a key question which is missing from these statistics is whether this is the job they intended to do once they had graduated.
From a personal perspective I can answer this question with a resounding "NO". In terms of My Plan (a phrase which will most likely become a common occurrence throughout this blog) I am on track.
My Plan
a) make my part-time job my full time job thereby earning money whilst...
b) applying for work experience, volunteer stuff and internships.
c) make contacts through aforementioned work experience, volunteer stuff and internships and get permanent job.
d) quit previous soul-sucking full-time job with some sort of clever/self-aggrandising outburst at manager. (hair-flip non-essential)
e) become astonishingly successful and rich.
Though I am still making the transition to part b) all-in-all the five parts of the Plan I feel, or at least felt, were entirely do-able. However I forgot a few things whilst envisioning said Plan. Which brings us neatly to my first rule when finding a job:
Rule 1: You are your own worst enemy.
It is extremely easy to lose focus or become disheartened whilst job-seeking. I haven't even started looking properly for a job and yet many, many times I have found my self sobbing in some quiet corner or dramatically flailing my hands whilst describing to an empathetic friend my strife at working somewhere I don't want to and struggling to figure out if I have what it takes to realise my dreams. Just to reiterate, this was before I had even started properly looking for a job. *sigh*
It's easy to stay in the same place and think about 'what if's', it's harder to take the plunge and see if there is any truth to the words you've been spouting about "what you want to be when you grow up".
Anybody wanna dive with me?
